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Boats, Girls, Legs up to the ears of the tallest of the drivers and some motor racing.

It must be the Monaco race!

Although the race is not without its controversies, Currently we have Pastor Maldonado with a 10 place grid drop for “loosing the car and accidentally driving into Sergio Perez” [ie, being a hot headed tit and driving like a moron] and we have Michael Schumacher, who after “Having Bruno Senna drive too slowly and cause a crash” [ie, not being aware of his surroundings, showing his age really] has a 5 place grid drop.

After taking pole initially for the race, this is a massive kick in the venires for the German, who up until this race, has had a piss poor return to the sport.

This promotes my personal favourite driver [he used to drive a green car, I was young ok?] Mark Webber to pole position. Great for my fantasy league as I have predicted him for the race win. Miracles do happen.

Felipe Massa has had a better time of it this weekend as well, making into the top 10 shootout of Q3 for the first time this season, is it enough to improve Ferrari’s no-tolerance approach to losing? Unlikely. However it does put the Brazilian’s confidence through the roof again, which has been lacking since his unfortunate accident in Hungary in 2009. I’ve personally missed it, he’s too much of a lovable cuddly bear to leave F1. He also took no shit from Lewis Hamilton, something which he will forever have my respect for.

There is something a fair bit odd about this year compared to last year. The top teams (McLaren, Ferrari and RedBull) haven’t dominated in the way that usually occurs, infact, it’s been so topsy turvey that nobody knows what’s going on, the Pirelli guys are just smiling and being smug in their chemistry labs!

McLaren seemed to have solved Jenson Buttons “lack of rear grip”, however that could just be because he was going so slowly compared to the rest, that he can’t tell whether he is going backwards or not -he starts 13th tomorrow. Lewis Hamilton had an all-round OK qualifying – he will start the race in 3rd tomorrow.

RedBull have had a tale of two halves again, however, unlike previous weeks where it has been Sebastian Vettel taking the limelight, it’s Mark Webber who will take the pole position grid slot, whilst Sebastian will start from 10th, after the team decided to save tyres.

Lotus, now here is a team who are improving, and are starting to light a fire under the top teams, they regularly do better than Ferrari, and are a clear leader of the mid-field teams… Meaning tomorrow’s race is going to be EPIC.

Watching Qualifying for the Formula One today, I was expecting a Redbull pole with Ferrari yet again under performing whilst only one of the Mercedes cars made an impact.

So… I was right… but totally wrong.

I say I’m right because in all intense and purposes, if these scenarios were reversed then I would be right.

Redbull didn’t get pole and in a strange event, Sebastian Vettel didn’t even try and be last to cross the line with the fastest lap. settling for a more conservative approach, a better result that my favourite driver however, Mark Webber, who falsely assumed his safety in Q2, and watched as his time was smashed and smashed again. Finally starting in P12.

Mclaren were a team of 2 halves, whilst Lewis Hamilton topped each of the qualifying sessions, Jenson Button had a fluke change of heart towards his car, suffering understeer through out. Something the FOM thought would be useful to mention in every session. Not. Pole for Lewis Hamilton, 0.5 seconds ahead of his nearest rival and 11th for Jenson Button who apparently had an understeer problem…

Ferrari were expected to just be on the track. Nobody expected anything, and Felipe Massa delivered that prediction, quite successfully by starting in 17th. Fernando Alonso seems to have received black magic from his home crowd and starts 3rd…

The rest of the field is quite predictable with 2 exceptions, Williams were again a story of 2 halves where Bruno Senna qualified 18 after encountering alot of traffic and spinning on his final flying lap, parking up in the gravel, Pastor Maldonado however parked his car on the front row with Lewis Hamilton. Good luck Pastor, if you do go backwards at the start please don’t do a Daniel Ricciardo.

Sauber hit it good as well with both cars in the top 10, showing good pace for the race!

i’m excited for the race, we will have to see why Lewis Hamilton had to stop on track, as if it is something like say… a gearbox change as the rumours around the track are saying, he won’t start on Pole! Maybe Maldonado won’t go backwards? Hopefully Mark Webber will just go forwards.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, I’m just watching the rest of GP2 (basically Formula One but without the manners), Sky really have opened up motorsport to the wider commmunity!

This weekend saw the second race weekend of the 2012 calender and what a couple of races it has been! Australia was full if drama right up until the flag, and Malaysia produced a surprise result that caught the entireity of Italy offguard.

A bonus for me as a Mark Webber fan is that he out-qualified Sebastian Vettel twice, and finished in the points both races, unlike the young double world champion, which after a season full of not being on the same playing field as his team mate, is a massive relief and makes this season even more exciting for me!

However the drama was nothing compared to what Felipe Massa is going through now, its now a case of ‘will he won’t he’ be racing for the entirity of the season, after finishing outside the points whilst Fernando Alonso took a surprising victory with a car that ferrari has admitted isn’t the best, and Sergio Perez of the ferrari young driver program took a second place in what was an epic battle for the line. Till he took a trip round the curb to add a few more seconds to the gap he had closed. This was after he got told to ‘be careful’ by his engineer, but we aren’t pointing any fingers at the young ferrari prodigy who drives for sauber who have ferrari engines. Nope…

It all kicked off with Sebastian Vettel and Narain Karthykaen (whose name I have spelt wrong… Sorry I’m on my phone!) When seb.decided to show an unfamiliar finger to the ‘young’ Indian driver, they then seemed to exchange insults via the media for the world to see. I can’t even remember the petty incident they are stropping about but for sure (I could be a formula one driver now) will this not be an easy thing to shake. Vettel has been called a bully, Narain has been branded a cry baby and neither of those is a good name to have. Personally I don’t really care what they call each other. As ling as they respect each other on the road. Yes that means moving out the way for the lapping car, but also not moaning if the slower car is in a fight for position. They should just cuddle and say that it was all heat of the moment, which it was.

I’m excited for China, if the current track of results is anything to go by then, for sure (driver in the making right here) it will be an awewome race.

The most exciting queue of traffic on the calender. Not known for it’s overtaking todays race quite certainly broke the mould.

Safety cars, a red flag, race restart and drive through penalties. Some people seem more hard done by than others.

Lewis Hamilton made the mistake of running on the inside of people whilst others had the racing line, causing an avoidable accident (twice) which then led to the retirement of the 2 drivers.

Now, i know Lewis Hamilton is such a sore loser, i have made fun of this fact several times because he really is like a child who has had his ice cream taken from him. However i think his ‘jokes’ went a bit too far this time.

He hasn’t had a good weekend. He got a penalty for cutting the chicane and demoted to 9th in qualifying, i’m surprised he didn’t complain about the track not being straight enough, then he tried to take himself through the inside of the slowest corner of the track alongside Massa, and ended up colliding. Massa then seemed to throw his toys out the box and get all out of shape and drag himself along the wall.

He had it coming! He was a naughty boy and he deserves every penalty he gets. In his frustrations he then blames the team for calling him in and just not being ready…

Martin Brundel hits it perfectly;

“With Lewis, it’s always someone else’s fault”

But today he seems to be afflicted by the stewards so much that he has to be arrogant enough to say “i dunno, maybe it’s cuz i’m black“. Horrendous things to say – he did say “that’s what Ali-G says” but does that really allow him to say things like that? Granted this thing has probably been blown right out of the water, but he should be aware that he is a hero to alot of people.

Tact Lewis. We get you’re mad, but maybe you should have just downed a few Tequila shots like the rest of us, instead of slyly suggesting the FIA are racist…

And is you hadn’t have guessed it’s going to be a fight to the finish. Mark Webber starting in 5th with Fernando Alonso stroking his cat in front of him will surely kick up some interesting over-takes (hopefully)

Alonso is using his engine from Monza (as far as i’m aware) so I’m hoping for a minor (major) failure on the straight. or a turn. or on the starting grid.

For all his skill on the race-track it’s a shame that if Alonso wins by less than 7 points, it will be tarnished by the events that happened in Hockenheim. Surely he would have passed Felipe Massa in the coming laps? – Past events.

Lewis Hamilton. Twitter new-boy and it seems he has found the pace this weekend! Granted nobody could remove pole from Sebastian Vettel, but he sure put in the hard work. Only a miracle can allow him the title. But the race win is in his grasp.

Not much needs to be said on the Red Bull Drivers, and if i started having to discuss them i’m sure i could go on for at least a novel. Or a series of them…..

Although the battle at the front is going to be intense, it shouldn’t be forgotton that Vitaly Petrov out-qualified Robert Kubica this weekend. AND didn’t put his car in the wall. which is always a good thing! There is still a battle amongst the mid-field teams for prime positions – battles which could affect the race leaders.

So whilst Martin Brundle goes on about how this is a race for the 4 remaining title challengers, It’s more ofa race for the people behind. Who will not just be fighting for points/a finish, but also for Race seats. – which to be honest, you kind of need to beable to challenge for anything.

Korean GP this weekend, after all the speculation as to whether the thing would actually go ahead, everybody racked up nervously over the past week, anxiously doubting what they would be expecting on the 5 hour drive from Seoul.

It seemed apart from the media bridge and the placements of seats IN the grandstands, everything seemed complete. The newely laid track was scrutinised by all drivers and race engineers, and even Martin Brundle had a crack at it.

Cautious thoughts were raised about the oil seeping through the top of the track surface (a natural process for all newely laid tarmac… needs a few weeks to sort itself out) making it very slippery. The pit lane – a completely different surface altogether left the front jack man from prety much all the teams with sore shins, as the concrete that was down just made the cars do this nice little slide when the brakes were applied.

The entrance to the pitlane became more of an issue when FP1 graced our screens, cars slowing to enter the pitlane, were behind a blind corner, on the racing line

The times during all three practice sessions dropped off from about 2min 30sec to 1min 40secs or less, everybody having to learn the track. This probably revealed the most adaptable and quickest learner on the grid, Robert Kubica, who although decided to remain distinctly average throughtout FP1 and FP2, demoted the rest of the field to nul by setting the fastest time in FP3 – fastest of anyone in free practices.

Qualifying led to no real surprises, Quali-king Sebastian Vettel made pole with Mark Webber blocking out the dirty side of the grid in second. Petrov suffered his 5 place grid drop and started the race in 20th, whilst there was more controvery over the 7-time world champion Michael Schumacher blocking his former team mate Reubens Barichello. When the issue was pointed out in the media interviews afterwards, MS waited to apologise. It seemed accepted with a pinch of salt – old wounds don’t heal completely it seems.

THE RACE.

“It’s raining, quite alot” – Legard is way ahead of us in pointing out the obvious. Charlie whiting decided it safest to start behind the safety car, which they all did, for 4 laps.

Red flag and everyone starts twiddling their thumbs in their cars (Felipe Massa), re-doing their make-up (Lewis Hamilton), re-doing their hair (Nico Rosberg) or were discussing the differences between the safety car in spray and an F1 car with Bernd Maylander (Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso ).

Cup of tea later and they decide to start following the leader again. THEN FINALLY they let them go go go! time seemed to fly at least for Nico Rosberg who seemed to jump everyone and was doing fantastic until Mark Webber decided that running a little bit over the curb was a brilliant idea. 2 retirements. (and some more following the leader)

Racing continued with Sutil seeming to explore across everbody else’s racing line like a sheep dog, and Liuzzi taking some excursions. Jarno Trulli was the next retirement with some unfortunate Hydraulic issues. 3 retirements.

Lucas Di Grassi assisted Virgin by adding more DNF’s to their race tally, unlucky aquaplaning, whilst Sebastian Buemi took a first class ticket off the track taking Timo Glock with him, earning himself a grid drop at the next race. Vitaly Petrov seemed to think that the race didn’t have enough carnage spread across the track, so put his shiny yellow Renault into the pitwall. Pretty hefty impact, which won’t do his 2011 race seat any good. Sutils explorations soon caught up with him, as he collided with Kamui Kobayashi, and also earned himself a grid drop for knowing e had break issues. (I think the issues are called ‘standing water’)

Sebastian Vettel had it all going for him until his engine just went. He pulled a Heiki Kovalinen to put his own car out on track.

Hulkenberg secured a point after a magnificant race leaving him with a NEED to pit a few laps from the end of the race, Algesuari finished above Jenson Button, who in turn finished above Kovalinen and the 2 HRT’s.

Fernando ‘eyebrows’ Alonso took the victory, Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa followed him swiftly over the line as darkness fell over the first race weekend at Korea.

A good weekend all in all. The track should be perfect for next year and all the curbs will be in place, as well as some accomodation and apparently more parking facilities!

Eyebrows now leads the championship by 11 points, with 2 races to go. Although RBR are still confident they WILL win both championships, the fans confidence was knocked a bit at the time. But we’re a resiliant bunch. The victory will be ours.

The party afterwards will defo be worth getting arrested for sneeking into aswell…